The Libertarian way is a logically consistent approach to politics
based on the moral principle of self-ownership. Each individual has
the right to control his or her own body, action, speech, and
property. Government's only role is to help individuals defend
themselves from force and fraud.

However, I regard the Libertarianism as a kind of
business-worshiping cultish religion, which churns out annoying flamers
who resemble nothing so much as street-preachers on the Information
Sidewalk.

In order to understand how one gets from the "moral principles"
above to the sort of fanatical proselytizing seen everyday on discussion
lists, it's important to grasp how the ideology actually works out, from
theory to practice.

To start off, Libertarianism is highly
axiomatic. Note how the above quote touts its logically
consistent approach. There's a set of rules to be applied to
evaluate what is proper, and the outcome given is the answer which
is correct in terms of the moral principle of the theory. Are the
religious thinking connections starting to become evident? This doesn't
mean there can't be religious-type schisms in applying the axioms (for
example, there's one regarding abortion). But in practice, the rules are
simple and tight enough to produce surprisingly uniform positions
compared to common political philosophies.

We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential
precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud
must be banished from human relationships, and that only through
freedom can peace and prosperity be realized.

Now, how many ideologies have you ever heard state anything like

We believe that disrespect for individual rights is the essential
precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud
are good things in human relationships, and that only through
slavery can peace and prosperity be realized.

Libertarians are for "individual rights", and against "force"
and "fraud" - just as THEY define it. Their use of these words, however,
when examined in detail, is not likely to accord with the common
meanings of these terms. What person would proclaim themselves in
favor of "force and fraud"? One of the little tricks Libertarians use
in debate is to confuse the ordinary sense of these words with the
meaning as "terms of art" in Libertarian axioms. They try to set up a
situation where if you say you're against "force and fraud", then
obviously you must agree with Libertarian ideology, since those are the
definitions. If you are in favor of "force and fraud", well, isn't that
highly immoral? So you're either one of them, or some sort of degenerate
(note the cultish aspect again), one who doesn't think "force and fraud
must be banished from human relationships".

In a phrase I'll probably find myself repeating "I am not making
this up". It's important to realized that what might sound like
hyperbole or overstatement really, truly, will be found when dealing
with Libertarian arguments.

Just to pick an example from one public exchange (directed to me)

Too complicated. All you need is one proposition:

No person should initiate the use of force against another person.

All libertarian thought flows logically from this. For instance,
taxation
is undesirable since it is backed by the coercive force of the state.
Naturally the key word is "initiate."

So, the question is, does Seth agree with this proposition or not? Of
course he will say there have to be certain exceptions. This is the
difference between him and a libertarian. Libertarians (like free speech
advocated!) prefer not to make exceptions.

Note that this is the only political movement, so far as I know, rooted
in
one simple ethical statement about human rights. This alone biases me in
its favor.

My reply to this point was to ask if he agreed "No person
should do anything evil". I get to define evil, "evil" is taken
according to "Sethism". The response:

Seth, you have not answered the question. Do you agree, or do
you disagree, that it is always wrong for one person to initiate force
against another? If you disagree, then you disagree with the fundamental
concept of libertarianism, ...

On the other hand, if you agree with the proposition, yet you
still don't like the conclusions that libertarians draw from it, then we
can refocus our attention on the chain of logic that leads to those
conclusions and find where you feel the weak link is.

Observe the aspects pointed out above. It's an "agree or
disagree" where implicitly "initiate force" is taken to be that of the
Libertarian ideology. And it's justified by the axioms, the "chain of logic".

Note the rhetoric is made further meaningless by the
"initiate force" concept. When Libertarians think using force is
justified, they just call it retaliatory force. It's a bit like "war of
aggression" versus "war of defense". Rare is the country in history
which has ever claimed to be initiating a "war of aggression", they're
always retaliating in a "war of defense".

The idea that Libertarians don't believe in the initiation of
force is pure propaganda. They believe in using force as much as anyone
else, if they think the application is morally correct.
"initiation of force" is Libertarian term of art, meaning essentially
"do something improper according to Libertarian ideology". It isn't even
connected much to the actions we normally think of as "force". The
question being asked above was really agree or disagree, that it is
always wrong for one person to do something improper according to
Libertarian ideology. It was just phrased in their preaching way.

While you might be told Libertarianism is about individual
rights and freedom, fundamentally, it's about business. The words
"individual rights", in a civil-society context, are often
Libertarian-ese for "business". That's what what they derive as
the inevitable meaning of rights and freedom, as a
statement of principles:

Since governments, when instituted, must not violate individual
rights, we oppose all interference by government in the areas of
voluntary and contractual relations among individuals.

The whole idea of a contract is that government enforces
relations among individuals. The above sentence is a nonsensical, it's
conceptually that they oppose all interference by government in the
areas of government enforcing relations among individuals.

The key to understanding this, and to understanding
Libertarianism itself, is to realize that their concept of
individual freedom is the "whopper" of "right to have the State back up
business". That's a wild definition of freedom. If you voluntarily
contract to sell all your future income for $1, they then oppose all
government "interference" with your "right" to do this. It's a completely
twisted, utterly inverted, perfectly Orwellian statement, almost exactly
"Freedom is Slavery".

This is not at all obvious or what people tend to think when
they're told the song and dance about rights and freedoms. This point
about contract and Libertarianism needs to be stressed. Often, the
"chain of logic" used by a Libertarian will be a fairly valid set of
deductions. But along the way, there will be very subtle assumptions
slipped in, such as "contract" (meaning business) as a fundamental
right. It can be quite difficult to spot, such as a redefinition of
terms, or a whopper like the above. But again, it's very "logical",
very "axiomatic".

Libertarianism Makes You Stupid: from 2+2=5 to 1=2

The whole thing reminds me of joke "proofs" that one equals two, e.g.
(these come from the University of Toronto Mathematics Network "Classic
Fallacies" pages)

Now, the proselytizer might say, isn't every one of those steps
a perfectly justified statement backed up by hundreds of years of
mathematical thought? Here is a stack of great algebra books, read
through the pile before criticizing the conclusion.

Then, if someone points out the fallacy (and I won't do so,
to underline the difficulty of even this skeleton of an example) they can
come at you again and say "Well, that had a problem, but here's a proof
by a completely different method" (isn't it just amazing how these come
out the same?)

Even more advanced! Complex numbers have been used for centuries,
who can doubt the soundness of their principles?

This is why, as a pure matter of tactics, it's dangerous to get
into preaching contests with Libertarians. Sometimes it's better to say
"1=2 is utter nonsense, and if you believe that from the Libertarian
Mathematics, you've had your mind rotted". Now, this does leave an
opening for a reply "Nyah, nyah, you didn't go over every line of that
proof and find the error, you have to do that, or you're
close-minded". But someone could do more good at times by pointing out
that there are people walking around spouting the political equivalent
of "1=2" than getting into an involved discussion about part x of step y.
This is where Libertarianism Makes You Stupid, the grip of subtly
flawed logic can overwhelm everything else.

In part why Libertarian is a disease of techno-geeks is that you
have to be fairly intelligent to find that sort of long axiomatic proof
at all convincing. Of course, the task is easier when they are "proving"
that you don't have to pay taxes, but it gets harder when they try to
prove anti-discriminations laws are bad, as we'll see below.

Note this is not an attack on Mathematics, Algebra, Logical
Reasoning, and all that, which would be another rhetorical tactic they
could use as an accusation. This is the basic reasoning problem of
Libertarianism. There's a lot of platitudes (against big government),
but every once in a while they slip in some kickers (virtually absolute
contract). Whenever anyone points out the kickers, they can revert to
the platitudes, saying that's *really* what the philosophy's about. And
try to smuggle in the kickers via some other route.

Consider, how long would to take you to find - and explain - the
fallacies in the "proofs" above? Now think about doing this in a
political philosophy, much vaguer, with a bunch of cultists
proselytizing over it.

Libertarianism and civil-rights laws - a case study

One of the seamiest and ugliest aspects of Libertarianism is its
support of turning back the civil-rights clock to pre-1964 legal
situation for businesses. "I am not making this up". They're
very explicit about it:

Consequently, we oppose any government attempts to
regulate private discrimination, including choices and preferences, in
employment, housing, and privately owned businesses. The right to
trade includes the right not to trade -- for any reasons whatsoever;
the right of association includes the right not to associate, for
exercise of the right depends upon mutual consent.

Such a weird position is not just the purview of some
position-writers in a corner, but a surprisingly common trait
of Libertarians. It's one of the surest way of identifying one,
if they justify such a reactionary position from abstract considerations.

It must be stressed that a) Libertarians ARE NOT racists,
sexists, etc. and b) The above is not meant to comment either way on the
much more controversial affirmative-action debate. Libertarians can go
to town whenever they're called racist, sexist, and so on for the above
(gee, how could anyone ever get that idea?), proclaiming their great
personal but private commitment to equality. Of course, they never have
to do anything much in this regard since events have passed them by. But
they want make sure you know they fully support the ideals, even if they
think that all the past decades legal effort should be repealed as
immoral and unprincipled. They also love to switch the debate to
affirmative action, because that's far more contentious than
anti-discrimination. But the position's very plain. Drinking from the
wrong water fountain would presumably be "initiation of force", allowing
retaliation of force to eject the malefactor.

Some of the most amazingly idiotic things will be said
by Libertarians in defense of the above ideas of "rights" and
the evils of anti-discrimination law. A few of my favorites, from
debates on this topic:

The "Why is a raven different from a writing desk?" question

What is it about the "lunch counter" that is different from a
date? ... is it violence to be overtly racist
in selecting a romantic interest? If so, how should we prevent it?
If not, why not. Is it because the relationship is not primarily
economical, in the narrow sense?

The "Business is a personal matter" approach

Most non-libertarians are not in favor of the American Nazi Party
marching in Skokie, nor in favor of misguided marriages, or poor
business investments, but very few think that this should be illegal.

The "no distinction between anything" sneer

I guess that if a fat, ugly, smelly female entered your immediate
space (slobbered on top of you) and requested sexual favors, and
if by some wild chance you refused, that it would be proper to
take you away to a state mental health clinic and have your
discriminatory ideas expunged. Is this correct?

What sort of brain-damage does it take to argue this with a
straight face? Do they really, really, think someone will say "My god, a
lunch counter is JUST LIKE a romantic interest. There's no way to
someone could tell them apart. If a business doesn't want to serve
any blacks, that's just like not having sex with someone". But
apparently, this is all part of the "right of association" in
Libertarianism.

Libertarianism Makes You Stupid: the house of cards

The fanatical opposition of Libertarians to anti-discrimination
laws also illuminates a crucial aspects of the stupid-making effects of
the philosophy. They can never admit even one instance
of government intervention doing good overall for society as opposed to
the effects of the market. This isn't a matter of preference, it's
absolutely crucial to the function of the ideology. If they ever do
that, then it's an admission that social engineering can work, the
market can fail, and it's just a matter of figuring out what is the
proper mixture to have the best society.

This is what sets it apart from Liberalism, Conservatism, and so
on. One outcome against prediction will not send those intellectual
foundations crashing down, because they aren't based so heavily on
absolute rules applications. Libertarianism, by contrast, if it ever
concedes a market failure fixed by a government law, is in deep
trouble.

So this in turn leads Libertarians into amazing flights of fancy,
for example, to deny the success of civil-rights laws. They must
say institutional segregation was somehow all the government's fault, or
it would have gone away anyway, or something like that. Rather than
racism, it's being made stupid by ideology-poisoning.

Libertarian logic is an axiomatic system that bears very little
resemblance to standard deductive thought - which is in part why it's so
debilitating to people. It's a little like one of those non-Euclidean
geometries, internally valid results can be derived from the postulates,
but they sound extremely weird when applied to the real world.

The Libertarian Playbook: fantasy and free rides

What Libertarians have the luxury of doing is sitting back and
saying "All the problems will be solved if we just let Jesus, err,
property into our hearts, err, politics". What they do tactically is to
focus on incidents or areas where the political process is at its worst, and
peddle their snake-oil theory, contrasting the gritty reality with their
pristine fantasy. Of course the fantasy looks better then!

The reason they get away with this is partly that there is no
Libertopia, so we don't have a constant series of rile-'em-up stories to
point out where Libertopia is an atrocity. Sometimes I think of writing
a fictitious "Dispatches from Libertopia" for this sort of stuff. Such as:

"Today, Judge Rand ruled that the so-called "child-slavery"
provision of the standard employment contract between MegaCorp and all
employees was valid. As parents have the control of their children until
eighteen, the signing-over of their labor until age 18 to MegaCorp was ruled
a valid exercise of parental authority. Judge Rand, in his opinion, stated
"The government is not to interfere with economic arrangements, absent a
showing of fraud or force, as per the Fundamental Law of Libertopia.
All parties with the legal right to contract consented, and that is the sole
standard of evaluation. The fact that MegaCorp said it would fire any
worker who did not agree to this provision is of no consequence, as
that is entirely the right of MegaCorp."

"The separate individual child contracts were also ruled to be
valid. Although the children were told if they did not sign, Mommy
and Daddy would lose their jobs and the whole family might starve,
this was regarded as simply the employer's right to hire and fire as
he or she sees fit. No force, coercion, or fraud within the meaning of
Libertopia Law was applied." Junior Warbucks, a MegaCorp
spokesman, said "Do you make your children do chores? What's the difference?"

But of course this can be attacked in various ways, because
Libertopia is pure fantasy, and the real-world rarely stacks up well to
a fantasy, especially a political one.

A Libertarian can blithely argue that all problems would be
solved by private charity, by people of goodwill, or if government would
just get out of the way. It's a
common tactic:

If there's a
problem, our first question is not, "How can government solve this
problem," but "What government program must be eliminated to improve
this situation?"

Since there's no Libertopia, they never have to admit being in
error as to what will happen under their proposed regime. That's a
great debating advantage.

Common objections and preemptive rebuttals

"There are all kinds of Libertarians"

I call this criticism "X means nothing, except for the good
parts". Rare is the person (especially the Libertarian), who will
attempt to invalidate a criticism of Communist ideology along the lines
of "There are all kinds of Communists - Maoists, Stalinists,
Trotskyites, etc.". Yes, Libertarians have factions such as
Objectivists and debates on "minarchism vs anarchism" and so on.
But such obscure doctrinal divisions over theological points don't
make broad descriptions any less valid for an overview. Even
a harshly critical overview.

"You quote a lot from the Libertarian Party documents in your essay, but
the Party is not the philosophy. They don't speak for all Libertarians.
Does every Republican or Democrat agree with every item in their
party's platform? It's unfair to tar everyone with the same brush".

My quoting here is mainly to ground my critique in real
documents, to establish "I am not making this up". For example, making
business segregation legal again is such a kooky position nowadays that
Libertarian-naive readers would likely strongly suspect that was a
smear. But no, it's very explicitly advocated, completely justified in
terms of the internal (il)logic, laid out quite blatantly.
The average person hears all about the Republican's problem
with abortion issues, or the Democrat's issues with entitlement programs.
Libertarianism should not be exempted from criticisms of similar type.

"Any political philosophy has its nuts. Libertarianism no worse
than any other in this regard"

I disagree. I think it is. Any sort of ordered approach to
thinking forms a kind of philosophical framework, and hence may be
termed an "-ism" of some sort. But I don't see them all as equivalent,
and I doubt many people do either. Is Feminism as bad for rational thought
as Fascism? Every ideology has weaknesses and blind spots, but the specific
manifestation of Libertarianism is to make its followers completely
unable to deal with any sort of analysis of power other than the
most basic sort of government action. Thus, not only do they
develop a mental block against the actual functioning of
huge portions of our society, but this block then often turns into
raving denial when anyone else says something outside their blinders.

It is often said "anything taken to excess is harmful", but
this is unnecessarily crude. In medical substance information, there's
the concept of lethal dose, average dose, and most importantly ratio of
lethal amount to useful amount. For this last, I think a workable
analog is a kind of "stupidity/utility" ratio, and informally,
Libertarianism is just off the chart in terms of what is commonly seen
among educated people.

"Libertarians don't worship business. For example they criticize
subsidies or tariffs all the time"

This very frequent objection shows that reader usually hasn't
understood the point at all. Liberty and individual freedom is held to
be embodied in the ideal conduct of business, much like "building
character" is said to be embodied via sports. This doesn't prevent
criticism of any particular player as violating the rules of the
game. But it does impose a mental block against seeing the *whole
system* in a manner any way unfavorable, of examining negative effects
from an *institutional* viewpoint.

They're like fanatical sports fans who worship a game in the
abstract but also dislike particular athletes for being dirty bums. It's a
case of being fans of the concept, not any particular individual. This
is also something I go over a lot, but symptomatically, it doesn't get
across

And finally: "You're a Communist"

Not at all. I think business and markets are just great in a lot
of areas. But I don't think that is the sum total of civil society.
Being against business-worship is hardly the same thing as
government-worship. It in the inability to understand this idea
which is the ultimate proof that Libertarianism Makes You Stupid.

"Many USENET readers encounter libertarianism for the first time on
USENET. Such unfamiliar claims might be quite difficult to judge if we
haven't had the time to think of reasons why the claims might be false."